The project will drill two wells in the seabed to assess
whether the CO2 can be safely and permanently stored in a layer
of porous sandstone rock more than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) below
the sea floor, National Grid said today in a statement.

The Energy Technologies Institute, which also includes
Caterpillar Inc., EON AG (EOAN) and the U.K. government, invested 2
million pounds ($3.2 million) in the venture, according to the
statement.

It’s the first drilling assessment at a site formed of
underground porous rocks, National Grid said. The CO2, emitted
during electricity generation or from industrial processes, can
also be stored in aging oil and gas fields.

The site 70 kilometers from the Yorkshire coast is large
enough to store CO2 from several sources for decades, according
to the statement. The technology called carbon capture and
storage, or CCS, involves trapping emissions for permanent
storage underground rather than releasing them into the
atmosphere.

The U.K. government is encouraging CCS with a 1 billion
pound funding competition. It plans to support equipment that
gathers and transports emissions from power and industrial
plants in “clusters,” such as those in Yorkshire and Humber,
near to storage sites in the North Sea.